Clinical laboratory testing has changed and improved remarkably over the past 70 years. Initially, tests or assays were performed manually, and generally utilized large quantities of serum, blood or other materials/body fluids. As mechanical technology developed in the industrial work place, similar technology was introduced into the clinical laboratory. With the introduction of new technology, methodologies were also improved in an effort to improve the quality of the results produced by the individual instruments, and to minimize the amount of specimen required to perform a particular test.
More recently, instruments have been developed to increase the efficiency of testing procedures by reducing turnaround time and decreasing the volumes necessary to perform various assays. Present directions in laboratory testing focus on cost containment procedures and instrumentation. Laboratory automation is one area in which cost containment procedures are currently being explored. Robotic engineering has evolved to such a degree that various types of robots have been applied in the clinical laboratory setting.
The main focus of prior art laboratory automation relies on the implementation of conveyor systems to connect areas of a clinical laboratory. Known conveyor systems in the laboratory setting utilize separate conveyor segments to move specimens from a processing station to a specific laboratory work station. In order to obtain cost savings, the specimens were sorted manually, and grouped in a carrier rack to be conveyed to a specific location. In this way, a carrier would move a group of 5-20 specimens from the processing location to the specific work station for the performance of a single test on each of the specimens within the carrier rack.
With the development of new and improved automatic conveyor systems for laboratories and other environments, the inventors herein have found a need for a customized conveyor track and support system for supporting the conveyor track above the ground. Preferably, the track and support system permits flexibility in the arrangement of tracks and "gates" accessing various work stations, as well as simple and economic modules which are easily connected to customize the layout of the particular conveyor system.
In the prior art, conveyor track was conventional directly suspended from a ceiling or a wall support. For this reason, each and every section of conveyor track would necessarily be customized to fit a particular location. In the event of a repair, or other mechanical problem, the entire conveyor track would need to be shut down and the pertinent section removed for repair or replacement. Because of the customized design of each automated conveyor system of the prior art, any replacement pieces would also necessarily be customized.
Prior art elevator systems typically utilized a vertically moveable platform upon which a specimen carrier would rest during transport. However, it has been found that such prior art elevator systems are relatively complex to employ in the automated laboratory conveyor systems currently available, and typically do not provide for enclosed transport to contain any spilled fluid during the movement of a specimen among vertically displaced tracks.
Another problem with prior art elevator systems was in the time required to customize a particular elevator between two vertically displaced tracks. Most elevator systems required that the tracks be spaced a predetermined and uniform distance apart, in order to prevent customized manufacture of an elevator for a particular location. Unfortunately, on site laboratory automation systems frequently require non-uniform movement and locations. Thus, such unified vertical displacement was rarely found in the typical laboratory setting.
A change in the type of elevator utilized in automated conveyor systems also requires the modification of the specimen carrier for use in combination with the elevator.
In the laboratory environment, it is common for the conveyor track to transport various fluid specimens among a plurality of work stations. One problem with prior art designs of conveyor track was in the fact that spillage of such fluid would contaminant the track and the surrounding environment.